The London Goods

Nancy and I had an agenda while in London, to find the most unique beads/buttons that we could. We headed out to Marylebone Ave where we looked high and low for The Button Queen. We found the old location, and headed up the street to the new address, and stumbled upon V.V. Rouleaux. A little trimmings shop that was as pretty on the inside as the outside. Rows upon rows of ribbons and cording, and things. We filled our hands with as many rolls of ribbon and cording as we could fit. Of course, I dropped a ribbon roll every 10 seconds. They didn't have little shopping baskets, and if I were to go back, I would make this suggestion to the clerk. Even though she was super grumpy to be working there.So here in the picture above, is a small sample of what I bought there. We left, quite satisfied with our accidental find, and headed over to The Button Queen. A quaint and clean little shop with walls and books filled with buttons of any kind, new and old. Here are the buttons I found- some bone, horn, shell, bronze, plastic and metal. A little bit of everything. I like the horn shank buttons that remind me of an owl's face.We then got back on the Tube and headed over to Covent Garden where we ate lunch and accidentally found the hard to find, Neal's Yard. A little alley way painting with pretty murals and colorful buildings, it opened up into a beautiful courtyard with restaurants, and people eating outside. This was where we found Bead Aura, a small bead shop packed full with strands and loose beads. I picked up some glass strands (upper right photo in collage) and Nancy found the coolest blown glass hollow beads in brown and green. I can't wait to see what she'll do with these. She'll show her stash over on her blog soon.We also hit up the London Bead Shop (affiliated with Beadworks) where we stocked up on colorful and modern Lucite beads. Nancy found the cutest little ceramic bird beads, and again, can't wait to see what they end up in!I'll leave links for Nancy's blog as soon as she posts some of her pictures.